An impossible dream perhaps, but who said dreams had to be achievable? I’ll tell you my impossible dream – a world in which phones are NOT the only method of communication.

In this world, box offices have email addresses that actually reply within say, five days. Ditto support services, government departments, businesses and individuals – everyone, in fact, should offer a viable alternative to the ever-present telephone number. Be it email, text, fax, skywriting co-ordinates, I don’t care.

I had thought that with the advent of emails, broadband, and messenger, the hearing might begin to relinquish their dependence on the landline. Apparently not. Odd really, when you consider that 9 million people in the UK have some form of deafness or hearing loss, that this situation has been put up with for so long.

All these businesses / companies / theatres / depts are missing a trick – sort it out, people! In the meantime, I shall continue to dream. And in case dreaming doesn’t work, I shall continue to send peevish, cajoling and in some cases just plain complaining emails to those I see as the worst offenders. Sometimes the world needs a little encouragement to change.

Now if only they’d reply to their emails…